Orion
by Foxbear
Summary: With one final sacrifice the Allspark sent forth a wash of sparks. Each and every one guided to where it needed to be. As Megatron wanders across Cybertron searching for what he does not know he finds something he never expected.
1. Chapter 1

**Orion 1**

**A Transformers Prime Fanfiction**

**::Warning:: Spoilers for Predacons Rising **

The noise was constant now. From the almost imperceptible shuffling of rust falling from walls and beams to the skittering of the many vermin to the great groans as the plates and struts of the planet shifted, sound had returned to the silent world. Ancient machines sighed and groaned as they began to function with no sentient mechs to guide them. Rending metal screamed in agony as new wells of energon burst from long dry channels. Where the light of the planet's life blood spilled out crystal growths sprang up and caught the light of the bright star over head singing songs not heard for millennia. Cybertron was awakening.

Deep within what had once been a mine a steadier sound than the others had begun to beat. The scraplet colonies that had inhabited the shafts during the long dark of Cybertron might have followed the noise in their quest for sustenance but the burrows and warrens were scorched black from chemical fire and the few remaining scouts of the swarms they had contained were wandering and aimless.

Had any followed the noise they would have found an odd creature indeed and not one that would have tempted them overly in the first place. A coating of carbon and minerals covered the majority of a once purely Cybertronian frame in an earthy brown glaze. Red light gleamed out of his optics and from a starburst shaped seam in his chestplates. The beating rhythm became tremendously loud at this point and its source obvious. The massive chassis swung in a steady rhythm, wielding a pickax that seemed large even in the great servos that held it.

The rebirth of Cybertron had come at a price. What little was left of the infrastructure had been obliterated by the shifting plates. Great cities had been crushed to dust and ancient wastelands had been revitalized. There was little left of the once proud civilization, and that which had survived was mostly buried. What had once been great iron and copper tunnels for transport and commerce were now compressed veins of the necessary elements. The metals were still there but it required mining to get at them, and so the great mech mined.

Megatron had spent many days wandering the shifting, unsettled world. How long he was not certain. Many of his internal systems had been damaged by his possession and torture at the hands of Unicron and the forcible extraction of the demon. His self healing programs were doing what they could but it would be many cycles of light and darkness in the sky before they prioritized his internal chronometer. Therefore the once Warlord, once miner, once gladiator, once host to the Unmaker wandered without sense of time or place.

He did not know what he was seeking. Silence, he had thought at first, peace in which to think, but Cybertron was alive with noise as it had been from the time eons past when he had crawled out of the well. A cacophony surrounded him but he had a silence within that could not be filled. For so long, far longer than anymech realized the warrior had not been alone with his thoughts. From the moment he had first touched the dark energon back in Shockwave's lab the murmuring had begun in his spark; instant, unrelenting, terrifying. It was shocking how quickly he had grown used to it, had begun to crave it, had searched the universe until he had found sufficient quantities to supply the need, had kept finding excuses to expose himself again and again even once he understood the cost.

But he had never truly understood, not until Unicron himself had brutally explained what the violet taint meant; separation, silence, being truly and forever cut off and alone never to rejoin his brethren in this life or the next. Then the taint had been stripped from him in a moment. Optimus Prime had come flying in and saved the world, saved his friends, saved Megatron. The Allspark container had drained every last flicker of dark energon out of the Warlord's very spark. It had been far more excruciating that any of the torments Unicron had unleashed upon him, that separation from the poison that had stained him for so long. The collector had shattered his spark and reformed it a thousand times to get at every bit of the Chaos Bringer.

In the last few nonoklicks that it had inhabited his frame the Unmaker had wrecked his last chaotic act on the mech who had dared to seek him out and think himself an equal. He had stretched before the Cybertronian's awareness the great length of time the Chaos Bringer had existed. Had forced him to experience each eon, each age, he had spent trapped in the core of Earth. Had highlighted the many warlords who had risen, spilled blood, and spread terror among the humans. The message was abundantly clear.

_This is what you are. You are no more to me than every one of the mortal dust motes who served my cause without even knowing my name_.

_No! I am Megatron! I am-I-Am-_

His deeds were pulled from his memory one by one. Each held up and claimed by the creature being pulled apart even as he rained this last torment down. Each marked.

_With this you served me my slave. You have never been free of me, and never will be. _

And then the poison was no more.

The Unmaker had unmade him. Every portion of his existence that had been tainted by the blood of Unicron, from those first samples on Cybertron, to the crystal he had brought onto the Nemesis, to the floods that burst forth form Earth's core; all felt as if they had been ripped from him.

He fell lifeless to the ground, spark burning in agony and processor shocked into stillness. It had seemed to last an eternity and in its wake his processor and spark had been left clear and unclouded for the first time in eons. The hunger still burned but now he could identify it for the abomination it was. Such clarity had not been his for so long. As he lay there he tried to gather his wits. He remembered those first glorious cycles with Orion, when they were going to change the world together, standing together watching the gladiator fights under Iacon, the horror in the Archivist's innocent optics as he saw the shed energon and shattered sparks his fellow Iaconian mechs took pleasure in, the elation Megatronous felt realizing that they would be allies. He felt now and wondered at his ability to move his own servos, at his freedom, no matter how painful it was. Everything that stood between those moments was hazy, unimportant somehow. Had those ages really occurred? Or was this all some new torment by the Unmaker?

How he found the strength to stand he would wonder ever after. But find it he did, even as Starscream arrived with his prattling of loyalty and conquest. Horror rose up in the raw spark at the thought. Him? Subject the very mechs he was fighting to free? That thought lasted a nanoklick before being swept aside by a bitter wave that might have been comprised of remorse and self loathing. How could he even harbor these feelings after all he had done? For the changes in his frame, the changes he could see in Orion's, no Optimus's, frame, the shattered world around him; all confirmed the truth of the terrible memories. A small voice in the back of his processor pointed out that his fusion cannon was gone, and along with it his battle sword. He was changed, transformed in far more ways than one. All this passed in a sparkbeat and he was left staring in horror at his servos. How had he strayed so far from his goals? How was it that his hands were stained with so much innocent energon?

"NO!" he roared in agony.

The blast was directed at the cringing Seeker but in truth the larger Warrior barely saw him. Instead he was seeing a sturdy red and blue mech. Cerulean optics beaming up at him with trust and hope, all of which he had betrayed. There was no comforting, deceiving buzz in his spark to hide behind. No fog of purple haze to cover that truth. He strode away from his former Second, longing to throw himself at the peds of his brother and beg forgiveness. But even without the presence of Unicron his own pride was too strong to allow that. Not at the peds of the warrior who had defeated him so many times. Still, in the massive frame his brother now wore he could see the ghost of the mech who had come to him bursting with curiosity and stirring hope. Orion at least deserved an explanation. The truth.

"Because I now know the true meaning of oppression, and have thus lost my taste for inflicting it."

True enough, for now. Megatron dared a glance into Optimus's optics for a moment and saw suspicion, suspicion spark deep and old as their split, and yet still a spark of hope. The once-Warlord looked away as he felt his spark shatter afresh. There would truly never be any return to what they had been, to the trust and brotherhood they had shared. Orion was gone, Megatronous was gone. Now his brother was the host to the purity that was creation, and he was a husk tainted from spark to mesh with the stain of Earth and the monster it in turn had been host to. Still, the red and blue mech held onto his hope, despite betrayal after betrayal.

He longed to say something. To beg forgiveness? To claim that all that had passed between them no longer mattered? That he would willingly put aside the Decepticons and work beside his brother to rebuild this world? The keen processor that had guided the war for so long whirled to life and shattered these impulses before they were fully formed. He was under no delusion about what he had done. The low level possession by a dormant demon did not entirely explain or in any way excuse his actions. He had betrayed his brother, he had destroyed his entire world. He could not ask Optimus for forgiveness now, if only because he knew the mech would want to grant it. A murderer such as him deserved nothing. From the way Starscream was babbling it was clear his mere presence brought Unicron's chaos to the situation as if the taint had not been ripped from him. But perhaps there was one last service he could render his brother.

"Enough!" he cried out stalking toward the Seeker. "The Decepticons are no more, and that is final."

Unable to bear another glance at the mech who stood behind him, fearful of what weakness he would show if he stayed, too cowardly to face the humiliation that he knew was his just due; the Warrior fled. Transforming he took to the sky and flew until energon depletion forced him to land. He had no idea where he was. Even had his navigation systems been working the changes that had been wrought on the planet were such that the old maps were now meaningless.

How long he lay there on the ground, aching with internal rage and grief, he did not know but he was stirred to life once more by the strange glow that lit the horizon just before dawn. The mech thought it was in the direction from which he had come but could not be sure as he had changed tacks so often. The urge to go see what was happening, to seize control, filled him and he fought a brutal battle to stay where he was, depleted energon or no. His time was over, he had proven unworthy, unworthy of everything he had once laid claim to from the honor of a Prime to the love of a brother.


	2. Chapter 2

**Orion 2**

**A Transformers Prime Fanfiction**

**::Warning:: Spoilers for Predacons Rising **

"Orion," he whispered in agony, clenching his carbon rich servos even as he fought back the demons of pride and self righteousness that denied his guilt.

Megatron turned his back on the wonder of the dancing lights and the dawn that followed it. His battle sharpened senses noted that one had fallen somewhere ahead of his current location but at the moment he simply could not care. He spotted a sheltered opening in the crust and limped into it. With a groan her shuttered his optics and let his systems power down. If he was doomed to be forever separate from the Allspark then perhaps he would not have to endure every moment of it online. That was when the silence and the noise had begun to gnaw at him. Every time the planet creaked or groaned in rebirth his combat programming would force him online. Finally he had come aware to a steady gnawing on his shoulder guards. With a curse he had dispatched the frustrated scraplet. The scout had been confused by his carbon glazing and had not yet summoned the swarm.

Giving a groan the mech gave up on his plan to ignore the world around him and set out walking. It was several days before he found a spring of energon welling up in a low canyon. Shocked but not willing to question it too much he had drank his fill, scooping the liquid energy up to him mouth while he optics roved the barren landscape. Well he knew what vermin roved the desolate world and such bounty as he now stood over would attract many. When his tanks were full he moved on. More of the springs dotted the canyon land he had entered. He found fewer on the high planes he come to next but the desolate region appealed to him.

By now he had grown to dread the dichotomy between his own silent spark and the constant beat of the planet. He felt the need to make some sound, to prove to the world around him that he was alive, a part of everything. But screaming in futility had never appealed to him. So when he came to a shaft that burrowed down into a low rise he stopped. The place was sheltered in a low valley. It was far enough from the Well that it would be many, many years before any Autobot ventured out this far. A small spring of energon bubbled up in one corner of the valley, clogged and impure with fresh rust and debris. He had cleaned it out and built up the sides first of all. Then he had ventured into the newly formed tunnel. The first several days were spent clearing out the scrapplet nests, then examining the stability of the place. Finally, using what tools he could find the mech began to mine. He focused on the higher quality metals, pulling them out of the walls and sorting them as best he could. The scrapplets had already gotten to the surface layers and he had to dig for the good stuff, the metals that would be needed to rebuild the world.

Megatron was unsure what he would do with the raw ores. He had some vague notion of sneaking it into the Autobot camp and leaving it for Optimus to find. The first down payment in what must be a never ending and fruitless attempt to make amends for what he had wrought. But such thoughts were only passing whims. For now he simply stacked them at the entrance to the tunnel and tried to fill the silence in his spark with the steady beat of metal on metal.

He had created a makeshift powerdown berth in a side tunnel. There he would ride out the acid rain and ion storms that cracked and thundered across the surface of the healing planet. On clear nights, when the miner grew tired of being confined he would slip out of the tunnel and gaze up at the stars. One such night he stood with his back to the side of the rise sipping on the unrefined energon in a rough vessel he had found. The silence in his spark was burning against the backdrop of an approaching acid rainstorm but he was too exhausted to work the tunnel anymore tonight, too tired to fight it. Before the coming storm Cybertron too seemed quiet in the darkness. Any noises were far off and dim and his audials strained to hear them. Perhaps that was why he noted the steady scratching.

With a tired growl the mech pushed himself off the wall and set the energon down. Unicron had left him with no weapons to speak of; perhaps thinking that a slave body needed none when the parasite within could summon whatever he needed from the ether. Whatever the intentions of the Unmaker the miner found himself without integrated firepower. Still he had not led an army for eons without learning a few tricks. Picking up a bag he always kept near at hand the mech selected a rather makeshift looking ball of wire and copper from it and stalked towards the sound.

As he expected around the corner in an area of the valley he had yet to explore he found a scout troop of scrapplets busily gnawing away at something in the ground. As usual they paid little attention to his carbon infused mesh and kept at the object. With a snarl Megatron crushed the improvised explosive device and tossed it at the swarm. With a hiss and a pale cloud of particles the chemicals contained within reacted and pulled the energy from the atmosphere around them, dropping the temperature suddenly and fatally for the vermin. After determining that none had survived to carry information back to the colony Megatron stepped forward to examine what they had been so vigorously attacking. There was little on the surface in this area to attract them and it was odd to see them outside the tunnels when the acid threatened.

He knelt and brushed away the frozen bodies then cried out as his servos touched unexpected warmth and his spark lurched. Every battle hardened instinct screamed at him to get away from the oblong thing but some force drew him nearer. There were the faint signs of an impact in the plating surrounding the thing. No, not an impact, the small part of Megatron's processor that was still working as his spark tried to leap out of his chassis, corrected his first impression. A twisting mass of roots led down from the rough concave platform that supported the thing and appeared to have been drawing up materials and energon from the surrounding plating and perhaps deeper below, creating a depression around the whole. One of the shattered memories from Earth surfaced, something Knockout had been simpering on about and the Warlord had inadvertently absorbed. An egg, it looked for all the world like an egg in a nest, sitting up straight and tall waiting for its progenerator to come defend it.

Wondering the mech reached out to run his servos over the cracks and gouges in the surface of the red and blue shell. It must have been thick to start off with to have withstood the vermin for as long as it did. The twisted podium of tubes and cables had been nearly gnawed through and seeped enrgon and other unidentifiable fluids. With every touch his spark began to struggle harder and harder in its casing and true fear took the mech. He was about to pull back his hand when the podium cracked and buckled and the nest peeled away from the egg. Without thinking Megatron snatched up the egg and held it. His large servos did not reach even half way around the living metal shell, for there was no doubt whatever this was it was alive, alive and crying out to his spark.

As the mech knelt dumbstruck the plating on the egg began to shift. His servos understood what was happening before his processor caught up and moved to hold the tiny mech that transformed in his hands. Pure silver protoform gleamed up at him in the moonlight and perfect faceplates scrunched in pain and distress from torn plating and bite marks. Little servos clenched in fists under the chin and knees were drawn up to elbows. The sound of Megatron's chestplates opening startled them both and bright blue optics un-shuttered for the first time to blink up at the first sight they had ever seen. Confusion and curiosity dominated the tiny expression as two little arms reached out for the pulsing red spark and impossibly small protoarmor opened in response.

The miner cried out in awe and no little fear as he looked on the perfect white spark. The swirling surrounding energy that connected it to the chamber flickered red as human blood and blue as their sky but the core of the little one was pure untainted white light. Within his ancient spark chamber instructions were received from programs long dormant and transformation began that the mech had never known. A gently as a caress but as inexorably as the gravity of a singularity a thin cable was drawn out and touched a spot in the tiny spark chamber.

Without training or guidance other that the ancient programs that were burning through him Megatron knew what was needed and without hesitation the mech gave. Information, language, flowed over the hardline data connection. Nanites carrying coding for armor and strut structure swarmed over the cable surface and were eagerly accepted into the newsparked frame. The counter to every virus the mighty frame had caught and resisted was passed on in those fleeting moments. Pure energon, refined by his own tanks to the needed purity fed into the hungry little systems.

And the tiny mech responded. All fear vanished from his faceplates, replaced by love and joy. Little servos reached eagerly for the great red spark and flickers of delighted curiosity danced around Megatron's awareness, emotions he knew could not be his own. The damage the Scraplets left in the small frame began to heal over as plain silver protoarmor grew energized and healthy. A light trill of laughter burst from the new vocalizer and the frame struggled to sit up in the servos that held him. Awe, filled the stoic faceplates of the mech above him as the cable retracted and both sets of chestplates slid shut.

Megatron gave a groan of confusion as he gazed at now ruby red optics. Later, when the sparkling developed a taste for carbon and his armor grew in an Earth red tone, he would curse his shortsightedness and carelessness as he wondered what else he might have unwillingly gifted his sparkling with. Had he tainted that innocent spark with the curse of Unicron? Later he would seek out Shockwave and demand answers of him. Still later he would conquer his pride and return to the Autobots; willing to suffer any indignity at their hands in search of the answers to his questions. For now he pulled the little one closer to his chestplates and rose to his peds.

"We must seek shelter before the storm hits."

The first drops of rain began to strike the mech's shoulder guards as he approached the entrance to his tunnel and he hunched to protect the precious bundle in his arms. He darted through the entrance and quickly shut the gate behind them. Taking only a moment to sluice off the acid with a dilute energon mixture he kept for that purpose by the door Megatron carried the sparkling into his powerdown chambers. The ruby optics had shuttered and the miner could feel the echo of his own exhaustion over the bond. Was this normal? Was his sparkling healthy? Was it dangerous?

"Guardian?" a soft voice asked as the sparkling tried to both snuggle into the broad chest and smile up at the red optics at the same time. "What are we doing? Are we well?"

Startled the great mech sat heavily on his berth. His moments old sparkling could talk? A light prod at his chestplates reminded him of the questions and he smiled at the little one sending waves of reassurance over the bond awkwardly at first then with more assurance as he felt the little one relax and respond in kind.

"We are listening to the rain," he inclined his helm towards the tunnel entrance where the steady downpour was hissing away.

"Are we well?" pressed the sparkling again.

Pulling the soft frame close and gently pressing their forehelms together the mech replied with wonder in his voice.

"Yes, all is well Orion."


End file.
